Poker Night with the Wraith Hybrids
by Nyala Necheyev
Summary: Four Wraith Hybrids decide to have a little fun playing the Human game Poker.


**Poker Night With The Hybrids**

It was a cool, dark night on the uninhabited forest planet of Sebulah, during that planet's summer, the insects squeaking musically as they could, the stars glimmering brightly above a series of tents, sheltering several people belonging to a race that had been on the run since their leader's latest defeat.

In one tent, a dusty brown-colored shelter glowing from the inside out thanks to a battery-charged lantern lighting the room inside, four pale-skinned, light-haired Wraith Hybrids were gathered around a folding table, stacks of carved and painted poker chips and home-made cards strewn across the table, each peering over a set of six cards at the other players, examining their opponent's faces for any trace of guile. Poker Night was on.

A young woman, only about eighteen or nineteen, looked about at her fellow players with a serene smirk and put in a couple of blue-colored, circular chips which clinked at they hit their brethren in the unsightly pile in the center of the table.

"See you five, raise you twenty," she told the perplexed, pale-red-headed young hybrid on her right, who met her yellow eyes with some misgiving. Sodi Katan flashed him a flirtatious grin and tossed her silky white hair behind her shoulders, then looked over at the tall, gaunt male sitting to the second-in-command's left along with all the other players, beside whom sat the dealer icon.

"Ian?" asked Jericho, the red-headed Hybrid, "Move?"

"Let me think," Ian insisted, his large blue eyes examining his cards a bit nervously. Holding the military rank of Fourth, the young man was a shy, quiet individual who had never been one to stand much bloodshed. This alone kept him from replacing Misha Hexor as Third. Sodi Katan, holding the rank of Second, could outmaneuver both of the men easily, but in poker, she was presented an enormous challenge by which to prove herself, which she relished. In fact, it had been her in the first place who had gotten the gang together for Poker Night, of which this was the first weekly game.

"I...I guess I fold," Ian announced gloomily, throwing down his cards face up. Sodi, Jericho, and the remaining player Analissa hissed with sympathy as they saw what hand he had ben forced to surrender – a Jack, a King, a Three, a Two, a Six, and a Nine.

"Youch," Sodi murmured, then asked, "Why don't you try another round, Ian? I'm sure you'll win something."

"No," Ian declined glumly, "I'm sorry, guys, but I've decided that poker just isn't my game. I'm turning in."

"Oh, come on, Ian," the Second crooned hopefully, "What in the multiverse happened to Beginner's Luck? Please, I'll go easy on you!"

"The hell you will," Ian snapped back ill-temperately, "You're cleaning me out like a dead fish, Second, and I don't have any luck, I have a cash flow problem!"

"But - !" Sodi tried to stop the disappointed Fourth as he left the tent, but she was too late. "Aw, damn."

"Loser," Analiss muttered stoically, though it was loud enough for the retreating Ian to hear loud and clearly.

"Analiss!" Jericho reproved her, "That wasn't very nice!"

Sodi turned back to the table with a sigh, glancing over at the empty fourth chair. "Yeah, that really wasn't particularly encouraging, Ann. Think how you would feel if you weren't winning anything at a weekly Poker Night and nobody was encouraging you to do better, or even offering up any advice?"

"Well …" Analiss started to protest, then relented, "Okay, okay, I'll apologize later. But that still doesn't negate the fact that we need a new fourth now."

"What about Michael Kenmore?" Jericho suggested hopefully, "Bet he wouldn't mind a chance to let his hair down...so to speak."

Both Sodi and Analiss looked at the young Hybrid incredulously.

"You think you can out-bluff Michael Kenmore?" Sodi asked him.

An image came to young Jericho's mind unbidden – Michael Kenmore, his yellow eyes glowing in the lamplight and gray, bristled hair uncombed as usual, glaring sternly at the young soldier, intoning in that oddly-accented manner of his, "See you ten and raise you twenty."

"Good point," Jericho agreed and leaned his elbows desertedly on the table, "But we still need a fourth."

All three poker players leaned forward on the table, frowning in thought, trying to pick out a name in their minds that might be attached to a person who knew how to play Poker.

Just then the tent flap lifted, and Misha Hexor, a tall man of about 45, stepped in.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"Not at all," Jericho replied confidently, "We were just -"

"Hold it, Jerry," Sodi ordered, her yellow eyes narrowing. Analiss' mind was already on the same track as hers was.

"Have you ever heard of Poker, Third?"

It was Sodi who had thought it, but Analiss who had said it. Hexor frowned slightly at the question.

"No, I haven't," he replied, his voice a deep, soothing timbre, "Is that what you are playing now?"

"We've got room," said Sodi, a little too eagerly. Analiss shot her commander a sharp look.

"It's always good to learn a new trick," Hexor consented, and took a seat in the empty folding chair where Fourth Ian had been sitting just a few moments before.

**A few minutes later...**

"That's it!" snapped a livid Sodi Katan, standing up and throwing her cards down in vehement frustration, "That is it!"

"Oh, come on, Sodi," Jericho tried to mediate, "It's only beginner's luck - "

"Beginner's luck, hell!" Sodi rebuffed furiously, "I could understand Ian losing, he's a ditz, anyway. At least that game got me some profit! But this... this is ridiculous!"

"I don't see what the problem is," Third Hexor defended himself stoically from behind a mountain valley of poker chips.

"He doesn't see!" Sodi echoed to the heavens, then looked back down at the bearded Hybrid, "'Course you don't see, how the hell're you gonna see a problem when you're the only one that's winning!" Sitting back down in a huff, Sodi crossed her arms sullenly and muttered, "I want Ian back."

"Well, if you wanted him back, you shouldn't have run him off in the first place," Jericho explained neutrally. A sharp glare from the angry Second made him cower back in his chair and want to disappear.

"Well," said Analiss, laying down her cards too, "It's kind of a moot point, really. Sun's up."

"Is it really?" asked Hexor, leaning forward to peer through the tent flap, "I didn't realize."

"'Course not," Sodi returned, glowering, "Can't see anything over a stack of chips_ that _big."

"Well then," said Jericho, glad to have an excuse to exeunt now, stage right, "I guess it's time to cash in our chips and get going. I'm ditched."

Still glaring sullenly, Sodi Katan reluctantly forked out a hundred and fifty "dollars" to the victorious Third, who only smiled serenely into her defeated expression.


End file.
